I cleaned the engine Thursday evening with Gunk then washed it off with soapy water

This afternoon I had a bit of time to kill while I waited for filler to go off, so I went over the engine with a dremil to brighten it up a bit.

Rocker covers are going to be powdercoated black along with the clutch cover, oil filter cover and the tops of the carbs.I'm gonna do a bit more to the engine to brighten it up but I think I might take the heads off, re-seat the valves and polish the inlet ports.

You're really hammering on with this one, impressed my friend, very impressed. BTW Like the 'fighter in the background, funny how some of us can't leave things alone, fighters, chops, bobs, trikes, cafes, it must be an inherrent urge to be different!

looking good really impressed with seat unit out of interest are you going to change cam chain and tensioner as they are a real bastard to do as the whole back casing has to come off.cheersSteve

Hi mate, I see you are only about 10 minutes down the road from me, I'm in Harwich.I hadnt thought about the cam chain mate but now youve flagged it up its somthing to consider.Thanks for your interest in my project and your positive input.

You're really hammering on with this one, impressed my friend, very impressed. BTW Like the 'fighter in the background, funny how some of us can't leave things alone, fighters, chops, bobs, trikes, cafes, it must be an inherrent urge to be different!

Thanks for those kind words mate.I built the fighter about 3 years ago, and nothing has captured my imagination untill I saw a CX500 that some other guy had done. Instantly I knew it had to be my next project, I thought, I gotta have me one of them bad boys.

Hi M8Yeah saw you weren't that far away I'm in the process of doing an XJ600 Diversion cafe racer like you nothing has captured my imagination like this style i am loosely basing my bike on the hyde harrier will put a few pics up when I get time also if you do do the cam chain I have a machined extractor for the rotor if you need it.Steve

Valves are coming out tonight, the inlet valves dont look to bad but the exhaust valves have a build up of carbon. Not the sexy stuff you bolt to your bike, this is the cruddy stuff inside your zorst

So youre gonna need some valve spring compressors

One of those screw drivers with the magnet is a good idea to get the colets out as they are a bit fiddly.

As you take them out keep them in order so they go back in the same guides

be carefull when you remove the exhaust valves, as sometimes they can get a bit of carbon up the stems and be a bit of a bugger to get out. Dont force them through the guids as you could damage them, just get a small bit of very fine sand paper and remove any deposits and they should drop out.

All this black stuff has to com off. You can use a wire wheel but keep away from the valve seat

Under the black stuff there is white stuff, that has to come off too

You should end up with nice clean valves that will perform as they should once they are ground in.

The inlet ports were not to bad, but if you run your fonger inside them you can feel the rough texture from when they were sand cast at the factory. Im not building a race bike so I didnt go over the top, but I gave them a good clean up with the Dremil and the polished them.

Run your finger in there now and they are really smooth

Exhaust ports got a decoke too

Next I started grinding in the valves, a piss boring job as each one takes about 30 to 40 minutes.Radio on! brain off!

this is how they look when ground in, as you can see the one on the right has a nice flat grey band around the valve and the seat

In all I have 7 more to do, but I wont bore you all with that.

Oh and remember to keep the valves, springs and collets in the same sets as you removed the and mark them up so you know where they go back.

Ok, so tonight I got in from work and finished off grinding in the other three valves

That only took about 2 hours so I decided to revisit the ports and go the extra mile, so I went back in the inlet and exhaust ports and cleaned the up a bit more.

Next I fitted new oil seals for the valve stems, they are a patten part but fit really good

valves back in, and the jobs done. Well half done, theres the other head to do yet

Kind of a before and after shot here

Over all it took me just over 6 hours to refurbish one of the heads so I have about the same to look forward to with the other one. I think I'm gonna have a break from them for a few days and go back to working on my seat unit, then once I've made the seat mould I'll go back and do the other head.

While I was doing the 2nd head to break up the bordom I took a look over the other parts of the valve system. I niticed the tappet adjusting screws on all the exhaust rockers were either chipped or pitted. the intake side all looked in a1 condition. I dont know why it only affected one side, but they were all replaced with new.

20 quid for 4 tiny little screws, Sheesh!!!

All ground in and back together

I'll put them back on at the weekend after I learn how to use my torque wrench, lol. yup Ive had it for a few years now but never used it. Well, how hard can it be.

Fiberglass. The thing about fiberglassing is preperation. Make sure you have everything to hand, then either cut up or tear your matting to the sizees you need. Remember big bits wont go round corners as easy as little bits and if you rip the edges they will overlap much better too

The guid on the can says 2cm of hardner to 100ml of resin. the can holds 500ml so 5cm of hardner for one of my paper cups should be about right as they hold around 250ml

I like to get a coat of resin on then add the matting and apply another coat of resin to wet it right in

The first layer is really important as that will be the outside face of the finish pod so take care to get it right. A few minor imperfections are no biggy as they can be got out with a little body filler

After that its just about getting the layers on. I'm gonna do a 3 layer seat so the mould needs to be 5 or six layers as it needs to be really ridiged.